github api v3 update reference returns a 422 "Object does not exist"

Question

For the context I'm trying to update a file through the GitHub API. Everything was fine until I tried to update the reference.

According to the doc, below are the requests I forged and their returns.

If anyone has an idea, I did find nothing to make it work.

$ curl -i -XPATCH -d '{"sha": "69d0a253406585d8faf616ce3ae0ff2453b346d7"}' -H "Authorization: token AUTH-TOKEN" https://api.github.com/repos/Trax-air/TraxIT/git/refs/heads/ci-migrate-quay
HTTP/1.1 422 Unprocessable Entity
Server: GitHub.com
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 14:08:49 GMT
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 128
Status: 422 Unprocessable Entity
X-RateLimit-Limit: 5000
X-RateLimit-Remaining: 4948
X-RateLimit-Reset: 1447856141
X-OAuth-Scopes: gist, read:repo_hook, repo, user
X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes:
X-GitHub-Media-Type: github.v3
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
X-Frame-Options: deny
Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'none'
Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true
Access-Control-Expose-Headers: ETag, Link, X-GitHub-OTP, X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Reset, X-OAuth-Scopes, X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes, X-Poll-Interval
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubdomains; preload
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-GitHub-Request-Id: 4EC2914C:94AC:15486DB6:564C8671

{
  "message": "Object does not exist",
  "documentation_url": "https://developer.github.com/v3/git/refs/#update-a-reference"
}

I tried to update the reference by itself, it worked:

$ curl -i -XPATCH -d '{"sha": "694973310d80edfe9ca08bd2fd5a06a6407b08ad"}' -H "Authorization: token AUTH-TOKEN" https://api.github.com/repos/Trax-air/TraxIT/git/refs/heads/ci-migrate-quay
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: GitHub.com
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 14:10:20 GMT
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 337
Status: 200 OK
X-RateLimit-Limit: 5000
X-RateLimit-Remaining: 4947
X-RateLimit-Reset: 1447856141
Cache-Control: private, max-age=60, s-maxage=60
ETag: "25641a46e3d517196995aec80669dcd2"
X-OAuth-Scopes: gist, read:repo_hook, repo, user
X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes:
Vary: Accept, Authorization, Cookie, X-GitHub-OTP
X-GitHub-Media-Type: github.v3
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
X-Frame-Options: deny
Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'none'
Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true
Access-Control-Expose-Headers: ETag, Link, X-GitHub-OTP, X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Reset, X-OAuth-Scopes, X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes, X-Poll-Interval
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubdomains; preload
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
Vary: Accept-Encoding
X-Served-By: c6c65e5196703428e7641f7d1e9bc353
X-GitHub-Request-Id: 4EC2914C:94AB:F33F280:564C86CC

{
  "ref": "refs/heads/ci-migrate-quay",
  "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/Trax-air/TraxIT/git/refs/heads/ci-migrate-quay",
  "object": {
    "sha": "694973310d80edfe9ca08bd2fd5a06a6407b08ad",
    "type": "commit",
    "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/Trax-air/TraxIT/git/commits/694973310d80edfe9ca08bd2fd5a06a6407b08ad"
  }
}

I then tried to confirm my commit exist:

$curl -i -XGET -H "Authorization: token AUTH-TOKEN" https://api.github.com/repos/Trax-air/TraxIT/git/commits/69d0a253406585d8faf616ce3ae0ff2453b346d7

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: GitHub.com
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 14:03:29 GMT
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 1028
Status: 200 OK
X-RateLimit-Limit: 5000
X-RateLimit-Remaining: 4950
X-RateLimit-Reset: 1447856141
Cache-Control: private, max-age=60, s-maxage=60
Last-Modified: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 11:58:58 GMT
ETag: "4823502d472e3b3fe873841fcd60d3c6"
X-OAuth-Scopes: gist, read:repo_hook, repo, user
X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes:
Vary: Accept, Authorization, Cookie, X-GitHub-OTP
X-GitHub-Media-Type: github.v3
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
X-Frame-Options: deny
Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'none'
Access-Control-Allow-Credentials: true
Access-Control-Expose-Headers: ETag, Link, X-GitHub-OTP, X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Reset, X-OAuth-Scopes, X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes, X-Poll-Interval
Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubdomains; preload
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
Vary: Accept-Encoding
X-Served-By: 8a5c38021a5cd7cef7b8f49a296fee40
X-GitHub-Request-Id: 4EC2914C:94AA:AE467E1:564C8530


{
  "sha": "69d0a253406585d8faf616ce3ae0ff2453b346d7",
  "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/Trax-air/TraxIT/git/commits/69d0a253406585d8faf616ce3ae0ff2453b346d7",
  "html_url": "https://github.com/Trax-air/TraxIT/commit/69d0a253406585d8faf616ce3ae0ff2453b346d7",
  "author": {
    "name": "traxbot",
    "email": "traxbot@trax-air.com",
    "date": "2015-11-18T11:58:58Z"
  },
  "committer": {
    "name": "traxbot",
    "email": "traxbot@trax-air.com",
    "date": "2015-11-18T11:58:58Z"
  },
  "tree": {
    "sha": "ca47cb13f520913e643b15e6d0776f38ba577091",
    "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/Trax-air/TraxIT/git/trees/ca47cb13f520913e643b15e6d0776f38ba577091"
  },
  "message": "Updated api_gateway to 0.15",
  "parents": [
    {
      "sha": "694973310d80edfe9ca08bd2fd5a06a6407b08ad",
      "url": "https://api.github.com/repos/Trax-air/TraxIT/git/commits/694973310d80edfe9ca08bd2fd5a06a6407b08ad",
      "html_url": "https://github.com/Trax-air/TraxIT/commit/694973310d80edfe9ca08bd2fd5a06a6407b08ad"
    }
  ]
}

Answer 1

In my case, I was using the wrong URL for accessing the GitHub REST API. Instead of using:

https://api.github.com/repos/OWNER/REPO/git/refs/REF

Use:

https://api.github.com/repos/OWNER/REPO/git/refs/tags/REF

Answer 2

This solved it for me: '{"sha": "new_sha", "force": true }'

Answer 3

This may be due to caching. I asked to Github support and here is their answer:

Thanks for reaching out. The commit in question (69d0a253406585d8faf616ce3ae0ff2453b346d7) doesn't exist in that repository, so you're not allowed to update the branch to point to it.

As far as I can tell, it did exist in the repository at some point, but was pruned because it was no longer reachable. I think the API was telling you that it still exists in the repository due to caching.

I just cleared our caches and I think you should see that it's no longer available if you try to fetch that commit. I'm sorry for the confusion about that -- I'll ask the team to investigate why this caching problem happened.